Sunday, April 26, 2009

Things That Are Hilarious and Also Horrible and Bad

I was thinking about how my ex-boyfriends reminded me of different people…not all of them, mind you, but when they did…Lordy Lord.

A sampling…

White Prince


Dr. Evil



Shrek and Vincent D’Onofrio as Gomer Pyle I shit you not.




That Guy from Dead Poets Society and, Ugh. This guy.



Charlie Sheen and That Guy from Almost Famous



And the most recent ex-BF? I never really thought he looked like anyone…except maybe this:



Which is how he managed to overpower me. You’d be powerless, too, girlfriend! Because what it really was, was this:

Saturday, April 25, 2009

What I'm Into This Week

Grey Gardens

If you haven’t seen the documentary, you should, but definitely seek out the HBO film that premiered last Saturday. They did a fantastic job. Drew Barrymore is a convincing Little Edie and Jessica Lange is a depressingly accurate Big Edie. She’s also discovered Botox, I might add, which makes her look weird, alien, and a little demonic. Side Note, Ladies: Botox makes your forehead look massive. Like this:


But anyway, it’s fascinating stuff. This bit from the original documentary just slays me. (PS. Ma, couldn’t you totally see us going Grey Gardens? Except we wouldn’t have the mansion in the Hamptons. But you don’t need a mansion in the Hamptons to be batshit crazy. Whee!)



Happy Birthday, Shi Shi!

This one’s for you…



Phillip Seymour Hoffman

I hadn’t seen Capote until today. I know this is stating the obvious, but he never fails to be a revelation. I love him in everything. I think plenty of actors get bullshit cred for basically being the same person in every movie, maybe with little quirk tweaks thrown in or, my personal favorite: same guy, different intensities. This is Tom Cruise’s entire career. Actors like Hoffman inhabit entirely different characters so that the ultimate outcome is a seamless, natural, whole person in every case. Watch him in everything from The Savages and Along Came Polly, to Happiness and Twister (YES, Twister!) and you’ll understand what real acting is supposed to look like. We should all send him a Hallmark card congratulating him on what a fine job he’s doing. It should look like this:

Frontal view:

Inside view:

Picnik

Wondering how I made that incredible card? My computer has a crap photo editor. It does basically nothing. So, thanks to Miss Yasmin for hooking me up with this site.

Lady Gaga

I don’t really get the whole “visiting clubs, museums, and Paris while holding a teacup and saucer” bit, but you can’t deny that she is interesting. I like Just Dance and Poker Face. I think they’re fun if nothing else…and if I eventually tire of her antics, I hope I’ll still think fondly of her music.

She reminds me of these Ladies from the 80s: Dale Bozzio and Terri Nunn. Am I right or am I right?

Cat in Box



Click here and here to see two more videos. She had a ball.

The Chinatownchicken Song

Here’s a little oddity about me: I assign songs or catchphrases to certain things that I am trying to remember. Not all of the time, but a lot of the time. I do it a LOT at work with either author names or title names, depending on which has the better hook. For instance, I’ve got a particularly annoying hook in my head with a current author by the name of Fox. What do I hear? Much to my joy, the phrase from You’ve Got Mail when the kid says “EFF-OHH-EX!” Anyway, whenever I look up my blog remotely, this song plays in my head. Except I change “Alabama” to “Chinatown”…so it goes: “Chinatownchicken show me the way, Chinatownchicken got something to say, Look him in the eye, Bird don’t lie” etc. Now it is your head, too, foo.’

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Brave Jack

More videos! This time with a better picture. Let's celebrate Jack's newest triumph.



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National Poetry Month - Elizabeth Bishop

In celebration of National Poetry Month, I am posting one of my favorite poems of all time. I didn't know much about Elizabeth Bishop before reading her Wiki page, but it would just figure that she had associations with Vassar and Bryn Mawr, wouldn't it? Since some of my favorite people did some high learnin' thereabouts.

Anyway, here it is. Take your time and savor it.

The Fish

I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight.
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled and barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly--
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.

Elizabeth Bishop

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National Poetry Month - One from Me

Yes, I used to be a poet. In college. I haven't written a poem in a very long time. Instead of rolling around in self-loathing, let's celebrate National Poetry Month by reading one of my own. It's a favorite of mine, even with a couple of moments that slide into over dramatic territory, it is still a very true and open thing.

Once, in Winter

Just this once
I will unsheathe this
fine, sharp weapon,
show you its shimmering
surface, reflections.

Look deep inside,
past the shine, the smoothwater
texture, the thin edge a tight,
hungry mouth moaning
for you to touch it, take
the blade into your skin.

Do you see him?
Far into the reflection –
he stands there, flexes
his muscular anger, snaps
his fingers into fists, exhales
hot steam and waits
under stars, brittle flecks of ice.

He seethes, you see,
he simmers in the cold.
He wants inside,
wants to snap our delicate
fingers like chicken bones.

Do you hear him?
I still hear his final
declaration, said again
and again, lunatic reason:
“I’m a man.”
We kicked his ass out,
threw his TV in the snow,
little women beating him
with big words, a bitch-in-heels
glance down a pert, pink nose.

Notice his physique, cut and
charmed from hours to kill in
prison, before he returned
to us, before he discovered
cocaine again.

Can you see that muscle clench
behind his eyes?
It sweats like dynamite.
He stands in the snow, cuts
the phone lines, imagines
his pretty girls are crawling
through the blackened house,
sweating like animals, smelling
like salt and urine.

That is enough.
The weapon is secured, locked down.
You won’t know the rest
but for these hands,
carved with scars, white and thick
from when I used to grab
this blade from the blind end,
never feeling how deep it cut,
how much of me it drained.

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Saturday, April 18, 2009

Beautiful Saturday Night



The weather is sublime.

The Wire, season 4 is playing.

The wine is merlot.

The Jack is trilling his cute little ass off. AND, jumping on the couch with regularity. To attack Snugglebug. And then they groom each other. The only thing that stops them is my incessant screaming. Because it is so fucking cute I could DIE. Die!

Snugglebug's cuteness is relegated to her sleep: She really does look just like "Hobbes" when she sleeps with her little head turned 180 and her paws are all curled. You've see the pictures. Her belly fur really is as soft as it looks. Unfortunately, if she wakes up when you are snorgling that belly, it's all nails, all in.

Jack, however, has developed quite the little shimmy shake. When he's hunting--be it Snugglebug, a mouse toy, or a piece of lint--his ass goes high in the air and shakes like a little go-go dancer. By the way, what is the evolutionary logic in that? I mean, I get the circling to part the grasses in order to sit down, but what hunting advantage does shaking your ass in the air do...aside from identifying said predator as a cuteywootybooty? Do explain.

The video below is total crap. Look, my camera is balls. Because it was flattened by big balls and a round ass. But you get the gist, right? And sorry for all the "FUCKS." Unfortunately, its like birdsong in the hoods of Baltimore.

PS. If you haven't watched The Wire, figure out a way to make this happen. Don't let the grim subject deter you. I won't lie: it's grim. It's hard. BUT. Here's the thing: It is art. Real art. No bullshit. As you watch it, it is hard not to be shaken and thrilled by the fact that this is the real thing, finally. The acting is beyond phenomenal. The writing is beyond phenomenal. Everything about this show is above and beyond...just beyond! I can't push this show enough. Please please please watch it. You've heard plenty of critics pushing countless shows, but you should believe the hype on this one. It delivers.

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Friday, April 10, 2009

Seth MacHotness

You must have seen the commercial by now, but did anyone else know about this guy? I may have been single for too long, but this Seth McFarlane is FREAKING SMOKING. And maybe the nerd beacon flares whenever Wikipedia pronounces: "MacFarlane identifies himself as a Star Wars, Star Trek and science fiction fan." Yes, I looked his fine ass up on Wikipedia. Whatever. I've never watched his show, but I'm sure it is fine. His fine ass:



PS, the Butcher called tonight for the first time since the breakup. Just to catch up and talk. He wasn't mean, hateful, or, y'know, the usual. He asked if it was OK to call again and I said yes. Comments? Concerns?

Again, whatever. Let's watch Seth MacHotness again!

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Aww

I wanna buy this car but I don't know why.

Sunday, April 05, 2009

MIsc. Funny

You can't go wrong with misc. funny.





Saturday, April 04, 2009

Snugglebug Doing Her Thing

O Hai, Eat Shit, Suckers

On my 2 year, one-month anniversary of quitting smoking, I'd like to give a hearty shout out to NY Quits. May they take their best intentions and jam them, acid soaked and on fire, straight up their holier-than-thou asses. Anti-smoking campaigns are a GOOD THING. They help people make hard decisions that are ultimately life saving (or at least healthier). The whole purpose of a commercial is to manipulate the consumer, no matter what it's selling. I expect to be manipulated and I expect them to lay it on thick. The gross out commercials bothered me--in fact, the one where they squeeze fat, white goo out of the big artery was particularly horrifying--but I understood the motivation. Hey guys, LOOK, gross, greasy Crisco is lining your veins, idiots! It's enough to make anyone want to quit...and then hurl and hurl.

This newest addition to the NY Quits campaign follows a different route of manipulation--straight to the guilt trip, do not pause at common sense, head directly to the eighth circle of hell.



That kid is really crying. In all the news reports they keep emphasizing that he is a child actor, but the fact remains: He's not acting. They took the kid out into a crowded area, left him alone, scared the shit out of him and made him cry. This is one of those childhood traumas that stick, by the way. Nice job, NYC Quits.

What also bothers me is how the media has been talking about this story as if it was a necessary evil. And they're putting all the commercials in the same category, I guess because the shock value makes them all the same? Really? Really guys? Because freaking me out with diseased gore is one thing, child abuse is another. I'm not known as a big Advocate for the Children...not that I am the devil or anything, don't get me wrong...but I think the over-protective, over-congratulatory, over-indulgent parenting going on these days is the same kind of sin as beating the living shit out of a kid. Two different approaches to parenting, neither is OK. I'm not down with coddling children. Interesting fact: Frightening a child to the point of making him cry is not OK. Fuck your intentions. This is bad judgement at the best and deliberate harm of a child at worst.

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